The Cat in the Window (The Bird in the Sky)

"The Cat in the Window (The Bird in the Sky)" is a song with words and music by Gary Bonner and Alan Gordon which was a 1967 single for Petula Clark.

In the spring of 1967, Clark had had her biggest hit ever with "This is My Song" her first single since "Downtown" in 1964, not written and produced by Tony Hatch, whose 1966 collaborations with Clark had failed to maintain her US Top Ten presence and had missed the UK Top 50 completely.

Clark had then cut the These Are My Songs album with producer Sonny Burke, reuniting with Hatch only for one track "Don't Sleep in the Subway"; although that track had been the album's second single and a strong follow-up to "This Is My Song", Clark had proceeded to record her next album with no planned involvement from Hatch.

Clark continued to work with Burke but as his productions tended to be intensely easy listening, she signed with Koppelman-Rubin Associates, a Los Angeles-based music publishing and independent production company, to provide her with material with more Top 40 appeal. The submissions to Charles Koppelman and Dan Rubin for consideration for Clark to record included two songs: "Who Got the Credit" and "Bus Driver is a Fruit Cake" which if deemed suitable for Clark - which they weren't - would have been the first songs placed by Walter Becker and Donald Fagen.

Eventually Koppelman-Rubin had Clark record a song by their staff writers Gary Bonner and Alan Gordon: "The Cat in the Window (The Bird in the Sky)". Bonner and Gordon had been signed as Koppelman-Rubin house writers on the strength of penning the Turtles' #1 hit "Happy Together" and had recently placed songs with Gary Lewis and the Playboys, the Mojo Men, Gene Pitney and the Righteous Brothers. Although reportedly written with Clark in mind, "The Cat in the Window..." was also recorded by the Turtles, whose lead singer Howard Kaylan would recall "Cat in the Window" as one of several Bonner/ Gordon songs the Turtles turned down, although they did record "Cat in the Window" (quote Kaylan) "just to make sure it wasn't right for us but we didn't release it." (The Turtles' version of "Cat in the Window..." was first released on the 1970 album The Turtles! More Golden Hits.)

Recorded by Clark at Wally Heider Studios, "The Cat in the Window..." is a brief (at 1:55) track richly orchestrated with strings and flutes - Jack Nitzsche arranged the session - difficult to categorize by specific musical genre. The lyrics have the singer empathize with a cat ("with a tear in his eye") seemingly eager to "fly out the window, go where the wind goes" like the birds flying by. Resolving to "glide to a rainbow off where the clouds go dancing by," she ends with the plaintive comment, "You won't find me...don't even try to." Another Bonner/Gordon composition: , was recorded to serve as the track's B-side.

Released in August 1967, "The Cat in the Window..." proved a chart disappointment its #26 peak on the Billboard Hot 100 making it Clark's least successful US release to date. In the UK "The Cat in the Window..." afforded Clark her lowest chart showing since her 1964 breakout with "Downtown" with a #66 peak. The single's only evident chart showing outside the US was in Australia at #19. Plans for further collaboration between Clark and Koppelman-Rubin were scrapped² and the singer reunited with Hatch for the follow-up single: "The Other Man's Grass is Always Greener", which would fail to buoy her chart fortunes with a #31 peak. The twelfth of Clark's fifteen consecutive US Top 40 hits, "The Cat in the Window..." is evidently the least remembered, being the only one to register no nostalgic radio airplay as of 2011's Broadcast Marketing Research.

Besides "The Cat in the Window...", Bonner and Gordon reportedly wrote three other songs for Clark to record with Koppelman-Rubin of which she is known to have recorded two: "Fancy Dancin' Man" which served as the B-side to "The Cat in the Window..." and "Nana", a track which remains unreleased. (During her September 1967 sessions at United Western Recorders, Clark would also record Bonner and Gordon's composition "Happy Together" which was later included in her 1969 Just Pet album.)